That Which Remains
by Coldpockets
Summary: Musing about possible end to series, kind of. Character death. Sakura-centric. "Her heart-that-isn't-a-heart doesn't beat."


Title: That Which Remains

Word Count: 1091

Rating: T, for language and character death.

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters herein contained. I only own the text.

This is...indescribable, to me. In short, it's a drabble--can something that's 1000 words still count as a drabble?--about Sakura and what will happen to her. Or what I think will, anyway. I apparently have this thing for making characters insane. Timing is really a very fluid concept in this fic. Just know that the first and last paragraphs are in the present, and everything else is in the past. Basically. Terribly angsty, naturally. Be forewarned.

* * *

The hard packed dirt is cold, Sakura vaguely thinks, before laying down. She gazes about restlessly with wide eyes, but sees nothing with them. Eventually they close and her breathing evens out and the nightmares come. She doesn't try to fight them anymore; they wash over her maliciously, tugging at her hair and scratching her face and she doesn't bat an eye. Her heart-that-isn't-a-heart doesn't beat, reminding her of its dead weight in her chest. She puts arms around her knees and listens to the terrible, echoing silence. Someday, she thinks, someday I will find someone who can make it beat again. But the words are fragile and bitter--like the taste of espresso: a bitter taste with nothing behind it but an ephemeral heat--and she doesn't believe them anymore. She doesn't believe anything anymore.

Sakura remembers when Sasuke left. She remembers the coldness he left in her torso—she didn't know where her heart was then, didn't know the place she hurt was her chest—and the tears she cried. She doesn't remember much other than that, except the waking up to a damp—cold and clammy and unpleasant on her cheek—pillow and a strange desire to curl up into the fetal position, as if she can compact her body into that small empty hole in her torso and make it disappear.

Naruto died on a Tuesday, and Sakura thought it was ridiculous for being on a beginning day of the week. People cannot die on Monday or Tuesday, she rationalized—these days for the start of the week, and starts are symbolic of life, so no one can die on one of those days—so Naruto had to be alive. He was the protagonist, after all, and the protagonist always lives. She finished out the week, working tirelessly with one goal in mind—and heart, but she still hadn't learned where that is yet, though it beat more feebly every day—that she was determined to achieve. On Saturday, she headed out to look for Naruto, going to meet him on the way back from his mission. She tapped her foot impatiently at her waiting place—wasn't like Naruto to be late, really—and her eyes searched the brush and trees angrily. Eventually, Kakashi dragged her back to Konoha, desperately telling her things she didn't listen to—_Sakura, he's dead, Sakura, he won't be coming back, Sakura, please_--because nothing was as important as finding Naruto. When they showed her his body, she screamed and tried to kill them all—the faces were a blur, and she didn't know who they are, but she lashed out anyway—sure that it was her fault. He must have been killed on the way to meet her, they must have just missed each other, he must have died on a fucking _Tuesday_.

_Kakashi will die defending Konoha_, she whispers. His heart will be pierced by a cold, cold kunai the temperature he has always thought his heart to be, and he will gasp and die. She sees the picture in her mind, and wonders when it will happen, and why she doesn't feel pain about it—the heart-that-isn't-a-heart quivers lightly in her chest, but she doesn't remember or acknowledge it anymore—and tries to go to sleep. It stays in her mind, haunting her dreams and Kakashi pleadingly tells her he's dead, he won't be coming back, please, and she can't remember anymore who is dead or why she should know.

She goes to the funeral in her usual red-pink-purple dress, and wonders what the disapproving looks are for. There are cloying flowers all over, and Sakura asks someone if they know it smells like a hooker's perfume. The stinging slap of the father—whose father?—sounds painful, but Sakura, when looking around for who got slapped cannot find a victim and gives up. Then she spots the cold body—warm body next to hers in bed, trying to lend heat to her and fix her is-this-my-heart?—and she absentmindedly wonders why there is water coming out of her eyes before wiping it away. Her tapping footsteps make up a marching beat she marches to, grinning. A soldier I am, she sings lightly, I go forth to battle.—or was that a shinobi I am?—and her heart—she knows the name of it now, and where exactly it is not beating in her chest—sighs and reminds her this is a funeral. She takes the reprimand and looks at all the people and the sleeping Ino before skipping away.

Tsunade is yelling at her. She gazes wonderingly up at the great woman, and remembers her death. Sakura was so tired when it happened, too tired to go to the funeral. She curled up in bed—why was she curled up? what purpose did it serve?—and great shudders wracked her body. She remembers that her heart-that-could-still-be-a-heart was completely silent, so she reassured it, trying to make it feel better. When it did, she gambled with herself to remember her mentor and drank enough sake for the both of them. Her hangover was debilitating, but no one came to help her.

The alley is grimy, the walls caked with a disgusting combination of dirt and what-could-be-blood and something Sakura thinks is just the simple stain of human beings. She feels over the grunge with her hands, pulling them away when there is so much dirt on them that she can no longer feel the wall—or could she feel it in the first place?—and examining them closely. The nice man comes to her then, the man whose face looks as empty as her chest, but who always brings food. He helps her eat, though she protests that she doesn't like the taste of the ashes and rotten things he brings her—they aren't rotten, Sakura, they're perfectly good—and when she finishes he leaves. She is alone again, and she curls up—dogs she sees curl up, so she assumes she should too—and watches the alley carefully. Sometimes, if she watches hard enough, she can see them, the people—she can't remember their names anymore, just their faces, but even those seem to be blurring together—from when her withered-something used to beat. They never talk, but seeing them is enough that she is always happy. She dreams, dreams of sunshine and starshine and the light she never sees anymore. Curled up in the filth, what remains of Sakura dreams, clutching a dead heart to its chest.


End file.
